Saturday, 17 February 2018

On Writing in German

My copy of Arcana 25 is now on my bookshelves. It is time to explain why I consider this first German-language publication of my Angerhuber article appearing in this issue so important to me. I started learning German as my fifth language at the age of nineteen. At this point, my knowledge of the language was very meager, but I remember having high hopes of learning it up to the point where I could easily read some of the more difficult classics. The same year I joined the Thomas Ligotti Online message board where I got acquainted with many friendly and intelligent members. One such member was Eddie M. Angerhuber herself, who I recall was an extremely kind soul. I remember mentioning to her my attempts at learning German. She was the one who encouraged me to read her and her partner's articles that she and Thomas Wagner were posting on their AngWa Factory website. In fact reading the language at this stage was still quite a challenge. And here I am, twelve years later, writing (with the encouraged and help from Robert N. Bloch) an essay on Angerhuber's mesmerizing works in German! A really memorable moment.

Some time ago I've mentioned on CL that my goal is to learn to read in nine languages by the time I get forty. Time will tell if I will still be able to perform such a translingual feat in another language as the one with Angerhuber and the Arcana article in German.

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About Confusio Linguarum

Confusio Linguarum is a personal blog by Sławek Wielhorski dedicated to weird fiction, visionary literature, cinema, translingualism and bibliophily with special focus on fiction-in-translation and international publications.